Pounding The Keyboard

      I had an attack of vertigo yesterday so I just lay down on my bed almost the whole day. The culprit to my vertigo? Terrible lack of sleep. The culprit to my terrible lack of sleep? My bastar—, er, videoke-loving neighbors.       The torture began at the morning of December 24, around ten, I immediately cringed when I heard the familiar female machine voice counting which was immediately followed by a man belting out an Aegis song from the house nearby.       Hito ako, basang-basa sa olan       Walang maseselongan, walang malalapetan        Sana'y may loha pa, akung mailoloha        At ng mabawasan ang aken kalongkotan       It was followed by a barrage of ear-piercing renditions of songs by Renz Verano, April Boys, Marco Sison,   Parokya Ni Edgar, Journey, Air Supply, Eraserheads—no Pink Floyd, darn! At around four in the afternoon, another neighbor decided to join the fray and started videoke-ing loudly, too.   The playlist, though, was different: Lady Gaga , S

      I recently watched Darren Aronofsky’s mother! and I quite enjoyed it. It will certainly remind you of the classic Rosemary’s Baby. But looking at the reviews, a lot of people are panning it and actually hating on it, they say that it’s perplexing, confusing, pretentious, there’s a lot of senseless gore, and is an utter bullshit and is nothing but a piece of crap—some are even calling it the worst film of the century.       If you’d watch it without having an idea of what the film is about, you’d really get lost and would be confused with every scene. It’s an allegorical film and contains lots of symbolism and metaphors. To have a chance of enjoying it, one must know beforehand that Jennifer Lawrence is an allegory for Earth, her writer's block-afflicted husband is God, their strange male visitor is Adam and whose wife, of course, is Eve, and their two quarreling sons, Cain and Abel. The precious crystal is the forbidden apple. The baby Jennifer gives birth to i

       I learned that there’s an upcoming Komikon (November 12, 2017 at Bayanihan Center; click HERE for their Facebook page), and   I found myself rereading my old comics stories, which some pages were almost faded now. I probably wrote more than a thousand short stories and a few novels (probably around thirty) during my writing stint at Graphic Arts Services, Inc (GASI). I was very prolific then (like many of comics artists then, writers and illustrators), there would be times when I would be writing probably five short stories (4-page stories)   a day. My forte then was horror and fantasy stories. I wrote and wrote and wrote that time. I wrote while watching TV or listening to music, I wrote while at work. I would take   a bath and before I could finish, I already had ideas for three short stories. Even a   flea jumping out of my dog or watching somebody cross the street would give me ideas, then. I would even develop a   story while watching a movie or while having a conve

      “Eclipse” has been my message tone for many years, it is why I often delay in reading and answering the text messages I receive, I always let the song finish first. The closer to one of the greatest albums of all time, its message, as I interpret it, is simple: all that you’ve worked hard for, all that you’ve achieved, all that you’ve created, all that you own, all that you love could vanish instantly—one mistake, one tragedy, one accident, one sudden deadly illness  and everything would disappear and everything you ever did and the summation of everything you are will be rendered meaningless. No matter how in tune your life is at the moment, there’s always   this strong possibility (or certainty) that it will soon be fucked up.       It’s nihilism at its best,   yes.   But it’s still a great song. ECLIPSE All that you touch And all that you see All that you taste All you feel And all that you love And all that you hate All you distrust All you save And

      Looking for good, terrifying reads this coming Halloween? Something that will give you the inability to sleep at night alone and with the lights turned off? Try these two Tagalog horror books from Precious Pages Corporation (yup, this is the company that publishes those awesome Filipino romance novels) namely, MGA KUWENTO SA DILIM and LIBRONG ITIM. These two books contain Tagalog short horror stories that are guaranteed to scare the living daylights out of you.  My advice: read them in the morning and with a companion to lessen the goosebumps you will get. Mga Kuwento Sa Dilim features horror stories that really happened.       You can buy these books from Precious Pages Bookstores (they have branches at SM Malls). Or you can check their online store HERE.       Please click HERE for the Facebook Page of Librong Itim .

      I was inside my room, laboring in front of my computer when I was startled by my niece’s screams. I went out and saw that a flying cockroach was terrorizing her. She went inside my room and locked it while I picked up a slipper (as I am wont to do whenever a cockroach decides that he’d be a soaring butterfly for a few seconds inside our house.) I aimed to hit the cockroach while it was flying. But the thing is, it’s so hard to hit a roach in mid-air as they fly like a supersonic jet and they almost always fly high and near the ceiling and they have very unpredictable flight patterns.   I tell you,   it’s easier to return a Pete Sampras serve than to hit a flying cockroach. But it is very satisfying to hit one in mid-air, it’s like hitting a buzzer-beating three pointer on a championship game.       Finally, the cockroach landed on   a wall, it flexed its wings, ready to fly again, but unfortunately for it—I had been trained in killing roaches—and I hit it before it c